Fellowship with God
Disclaimer: The majority of these posts will be me trying to work through and dig into the Bible. I am not a theologian, a seminary student, I haven't even read the whole Bible, but I want to know the Lord and I know that Bible is His word.
2 Timothy 3:15-17 "and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."
This is my goal that I may be a man of God that is competent to follow His will and equipped for every good work for His glory. So I pray that through this God will be glorified and that anyone that stumbles upon these will not take my word for what the Bible says but will search the scriptures themselves and come to know the Lord more the intimately as He so desperately wants.
As I mentioned in the last post I have been reading a lot in 1 John, and I decided that I would camp out here for the next couple days. So here is a little bit of what the Lord has shown me in Chapter 1. The first few verses are one long sentence filled with many commas and dashes and can take a couple of re-readings to get sorted out. What the author John is describing is his time with Christ, who was from the beginning (eternal) and yet has been made manifest. Basically he is recalling the time that he was able to spend with Christ while Christ was physically here in the world. Verses 3-4 give John's reasoning behind writing this letter, "that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete." John's intentions are to show us how we may have COMPLETE joy. John states that he is proclaiming to us what he and the disciples have heard from their time with Jesus (The Gospel). He is doing this so that not only will we be able to share fellowship with him and other believers, but more importantly we may have fellowship with "the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." John is showing us the path to perfect, COMPLETE joy, which is found in fellowship with God. The question we should be desperately asking and seeking is how do we achieve this fellowship with the Father and Son. John begins to walk us down this path in the rest of chapter 1. John gives us a crucial attribute of God in verses 5, "that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all." Since there is no darkness in God it follows that those that are in the darkness cannot be in him. A small interjection, to be in the light is to give your life to God, believing that Christ died for our sins and rose from the grave, and confess that you are a sinner and that there is no way to the Father except through Christ (Rom 10:9 & John 14:6). Darkness is not knowing Christ as savior, it is not enough to just have a head knowledge of God and Jesus. John confirms this idea in verses 7 ("But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.") and 9 ("If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.") To have complete joy we must seek fellowship with God above all else. To have this fellowship we must walk in the light, and this does not mean that we must be perfect and free from sin because that is impossible (Rom 3:23) and would make this a works based faith (Gal. 2:16). To walk in the light is to believe in and follow the Lord repenting from the sins of the world and setting our eyes upon Him and His will for our lives. So please take it from John, a man who walked beside and was discipled by Jesus himself, true, perfect, complete joy is found not in anything of this world but is constant fellowship "with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ."
War Eagle and God Bless
2 Timothy 3:15-17 "and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."
This is my goal that I may be a man of God that is competent to follow His will and equipped for every good work for His glory. So I pray that through this God will be glorified and that anyone that stumbles upon these will not take my word for what the Bible says but will search the scriptures themselves and come to know the Lord more the intimately as He so desperately wants.
As I mentioned in the last post I have been reading a lot in 1 John, and I decided that I would camp out here for the next couple days. So here is a little bit of what the Lord has shown me in Chapter 1. The first few verses are one long sentence filled with many commas and dashes and can take a couple of re-readings to get sorted out. What the author John is describing is his time with Christ, who was from the beginning (eternal) and yet has been made manifest. Basically he is recalling the time that he was able to spend with Christ while Christ was physically here in the world. Verses 3-4 give John's reasoning behind writing this letter, "that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete." John's intentions are to show us how we may have COMPLETE joy. John states that he is proclaiming to us what he and the disciples have heard from their time with Jesus (The Gospel). He is doing this so that not only will we be able to share fellowship with him and other believers, but more importantly we may have fellowship with "the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." John is showing us the path to perfect, COMPLETE joy, which is found in fellowship with God. The question we should be desperately asking and seeking is how do we achieve this fellowship with the Father and Son. John begins to walk us down this path in the rest of chapter 1. John gives us a crucial attribute of God in verses 5, "that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all." Since there is no darkness in God it follows that those that are in the darkness cannot be in him. A small interjection, to be in the light is to give your life to God, believing that Christ died for our sins and rose from the grave, and confess that you are a sinner and that there is no way to the Father except through Christ (Rom 10:9 & John 14:6). Darkness is not knowing Christ as savior, it is not enough to just have a head knowledge of God and Jesus. John confirms this idea in verses 7 ("But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.") and 9 ("If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.") To have complete joy we must seek fellowship with God above all else. To have this fellowship we must walk in the light, and this does not mean that we must be perfect and free from sin because that is impossible (Rom 3:23) and would make this a works based faith (Gal. 2:16). To walk in the light is to believe in and follow the Lord repenting from the sins of the world and setting our eyes upon Him and His will for our lives. So please take it from John, a man who walked beside and was discipled by Jesus himself, true, perfect, complete joy is found not in anything of this world but is constant fellowship "with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ."
War Eagle and God Bless
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